"emporium" poems
"Honestly? I'd just cover that up", he says
Orion's not moving. Stars don't move.
They may die, they may dim, they may traverse galaxies
Change position in the night sky with the seasons
Give me one. good. reason.
To cover up my compass home,
The one good thing, the one beautiful thing,
On this scarred and wretched body?
"We'll put Orion somewhere else, start over"
You're not my mother, ripping out a new piercing
Locking the door on a daughter and her father
Drinking and dating and thinking "start over"
My skin is just my skin, the moles and ink
And decisions are mine to live in
How dare you claim yourself an artist,
yet break down your clientele, your canvas
So Orion's not the problem, sir
It's a debauched attitude toward station
When I follow the stars tonight, I will tell them
Needles have no consideration
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 4:13 AM UTC
There is this idea, this feeling you say:
A revelation of profound compassion
Riddled with crippling paramount tribulation
Dribbling with drops of pontification.
Thoughtfully and yet aimlessly kicking
Unctuously vacuous presumptions. Promising,
Eventually, to unveil brick by brick
This facade someday and assure me
The imprisoning edifice, with which you keep
Under lock and key, will be effaced
And naked, soon, someday in front of me.
Yet, here another day passes.
From curbside to manhole, up sidewalks and across gravel grit.
Then a squib toward onlookers window shopping
Glaring down at me as both they and you listen
To my dissonant and hollow caterwaul.
CLING, CLANG, BANG! Look at me I'm just a can!
Crumpled and malleable, a thin sheet of five cent aluminum;
Recyclable, reusable, just a means to a mans end.
Ah! But I am not what you think I am:
Within, a bountiful boisterous bloom, unravels
The arid breath of lies and procrastination you exhume.
Your insipid words fall vapidly in my mind like corroded rust
Gently drifting onto a lapping lake.
They are an erroneous ear infection boring my wits
And dulling my thoughts, a waste of time.
All of it bottled, canned, and manufactured
From within your ******** emporium.
Keep your bricks and mortar, think they retain your unctuous pride
While this time, for once, I kick the can curbside.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 9:27 AM UTC
Preparations are gearing up for the iD Dunedin Fashion Show, which this year opens with a tribute to Australasian style on Anzac weekend.
The 120m-long platform of Dunedin's railway station is again the venue for shows on April 24 and 25, which are preceded by the iD International Emerging Designer Awards on Thursday night at the Town Hall.
Saturday night is sold out and about 100 tickets are still available to Friday's show, organisers say.
Labels Carlson, Mild-Red and NOM*d, brands synonymous with Dunedin fashion, were in the original show in a local bar in 2000 and they're still show stalwarts.
Company of Strangers, Charmaine Reveley, DADA Vintage, Storm, Perriam, Deval, GG (from Shanghai), Liann Bellis, BEATS clothing, Jason Lingard and Jane Sutherland are also strutting their stuff this year.
The shows open with a section titled Together Alone, Revisited, put together by Doris De Pont, featuring garments by four New Zealand and three Australian designers shown at an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2009.
International guest judge Doris Raymond, the star of documentary series LA Frockstars, is also bringing some garments with her for the show.
The owner of vintage emporium The Way We Wore has a fabulous collection of outfits and she will talk about them at an event in the city on Friday.
Six fashion graduate designers from the Otago Polytechnic School of Design will also show their collections in the shows on Friday and Saturday night.
Garments made by the winner of the emerging designer awards are also in the show.
The finalists were selected from nearly 100 entries from seven countries and 14 fashion schools.
There's a strong showing from Australian schools, especially from Sydney, says judge Tanya Carlson.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
An emporium full of visual delights, moonbeams bounce and dance, around a pitted cloud clear site.
A shooting star shining, a whooshing sound if heard, lights the sky as it blazes bright, starting in the east, accelerating, disappearing out of pleasured sight.
Stars blaze illuminating dark, the galaxy forming its magical map of horoscopes in this glorious orb, Its North Star guidance for some who navigate upon our planet earth be it on land air or under the sea, a million or more miles the distance should we achieve the ability to or want to go see up close these glowing planets of rock, gas and ore.
Dying stars growing in their brightness, as if, a last attempt of holding life,
Glowing brighter than before their internal charges disperse, fading no longer able to ignite.
Dancing colours in the north and south, painted great abstracts wide and far,
Hues of fusing reds oranges yellows greens across dark blue,
Spectacular moments for those with time to sit, observe and view, these magical electrically charged special dancing hues.
Reflections distorting down below, hues shading, appearing blushed as oceans gush and light rides upon a moonlit magnetic heaving tide, a tide awaiting, a stage set for two
Only you can see the magic being created in front of misted, barely woken if open eyes,
Only you can see the rising spirits coming up to play upon the core of sphere,
Under the kaleidoscope twinkling melee filled bustling sea and sky.
Rise up, a beckon, a call to you, come join this light filled orb of invisible tunes,
Where a piano plays a serenade and the orchestra complements with
Soft sounds of Trombones, cello’s, violins, tuba’s, drums and flutes
A tempo set to sweep excited people off their seat and on into their dancing shoes
Rise up in your sparkly dancing dress and shoes for you are floating Imagination growing with every timeless move
Twinkling stars blinking approval, reflections in the agreeing tide as it ebbs and flows.
Rise up, move, dance, sway, step and jump to those imaginary magical tunes
A prince of darkness, a dreaming queen
A loving scene, a glory electrically charged night time dancing dream.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 2:31 PM UTC
a partial lobotomy of grey matters only to broken mothers of lost soldiers,
pentimento fading a revelation of humanized
modernized sentiment beyond the reaches of fingerless hands;
jagged bangs cut across the face of Burn-Victim Barbie if she were
seven feet tall,
imperfect,
9-dimensional shattered knees.
vote or die downward spiral protecing six-fingered man of mystery:
my name is the youth of America,
you killed my voice,
prepare to suffer in the solitary expression of the empty room.
peanuts for peanuts in a gold star self emporium with
thinking as a feeling sport contested by numerology in all matters moral.
Our very own
Satan as Hamlet,
set in a post-9/11 forgotten Washington,
drowning Ophelia in an ocean of plastic bottles non-recyclable.
meditation of the Om on a springboard of economic dis-stimulus:
up with the people!
in the midnight Vendetta,
too young to learn or sin originally,
masterful drunkenness shrouded in opera scenes from a hat.
fast track to a treble cliff diver
if you ever were my home.
Mar 12, 2011
Mar 12, 2011 at 10:39 PM UTC
the osprey flys overhead, but the baby rabbit trembles not
~for any grandparent-poet lurking about~
the osprey overflies, a regularity scheduled patrol over
our backyard emporium and all its hors d’oeuvre creatures,
***** has parental responsibilities, beaks to feed, PTA conferences,
the pilot, a wary watchful animal-his-rights guy, catalogues their still living existentialism, for though they are not fish, his diet of preference, but in a pinch a rodent or rabbit stew will do, if the fish are running too deep for no warming sun beckoning them to the surface.
Motel^ the baby rabbit, who lives with his parents,
(who doesn’t these days?) beneath the deck,
chews the clover overnight sprung, blissfully i g n o r a n t,
unawares or ignoring the poet be-laureating (him-her) but a mere
few feet above and away, pays no attention to the Poppy’s (grandfather) lecture about the rules of the animal kingdom,
who, eats whom, and to be more attentive to flying raptors.
thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon, severe say
the textured textual phone-netical all green messages, which
of course is a signal signal to the sun his job is done and can
leave the untanned poet in his state of original sin, soooo deliciously
white that he earns an appraising glance from eyes of the osprey,
a privilege he would happily tan away to promote equality ‘n stuff like peace on earth.
Motel, with his thermometer-humidity nasal instrumentation twitcher, decides, after chewing it over most carefully, time to go underneath where the white half naked people domicile, in order to avoid bathing, not his fav pastime, but making the osprey quitter le ciel, which is French for get out of Dodge, they got babies of their own to shelter and protect, even feed.
The Poppy, contented, thinks to himself, god couldn’t be everywhere,
so he invented grandpas to be “En Loco Parentis” which
Does Not Mean Instead of Crazy Parents,
but easily could,
for who else writes
poems like this?
Jul 5, 2020
Jul 5, 2020 at 1:08 PM UTC
These pictures trouble sense: the abject walk,
A frontispiece of misery and dejection.
Just chintz and prints, my buddy Ray says.
We are supposed to be in Egypt, I guess.
But this Pharaoh, he’s, like, the king of all
The known world? I don’t think so. It’s beyond fake,
The faux Pharaoh, the ersatz Dynasty,
Put together in Las Vegas or something.
Then a picture of the Nile comes up:
Bulrushes, a felucca…could
That be Baby Moses floating down steam,
His head up, smiling at the camera,
A big toothy grin? Giving us the thumbs
Up sign? Well…
The last picture is a hollowed out log,
A ghost emerging from the stump, a fog
That is about to flow and coat the known world:
It seems to smell, foul and bog-like, like it
Would smell outside the frame, spilling off
The trompe-l’oeil, to fool the eye. And nose?
And stink up Pharaoh’s Pizza Emporium?
‘The World’s Best Pizza. This side of De-Nile.’
A groan from Ray, as he gets change for music.
And when the pie finally does show up…
After like 40 minutes of jukebox
—Wooly Bully and 96 Tears—
…my God, ambrosia, thin, crisp crust,
Just the right cheese…and real tomato paste…
Hey, no denial here. Pharaoh, my man,
This is great stuff, I say. Great pie. A pause.
Why, I could write a poem about this, I say.
You know, pyramid pies and Cleo’s calzones…
Naw, says Ray, don’t do that…
Besides, it’s late.
Feb 4, 2010
Feb 4, 2010 at 3:45 PM UTC
At Fuller's emporium of whiskers and wine,
As matches are struck on the no smoking sign.
Mr Terry Fuller, of reddened face refined,
Regiments and orders his elbows aligned;
With stories of rumour, football, *******
Thieves, my boy and across Texas by trucking.
He loudly regales to the spirits of faces,
"Me and my boy have been to some places, we've seen some girls, he gave em' rub,
As I was too busy running the pub."
Howling as they're told, sighing in ease,
Mr Daniels accusing "who's round is it please?"
When shadowed in doorway, tip-toes, a pale boy.
Stringy, svelte and painfully coy.
Debate is lulled, as men catch scent.
"Don't come in here boy, or your money'll be spent."
Roaring,rumbling, the boy unsettled in mirth.
"He can't buy any beer, he's only just had his birth."
Half-pint of breath, the boy stammers to say.
"I just was curious, i mean, I ask, if I may-"
A bellowing fanfare, "Speak up or go away!"
"I just wanted to know what you do with your day?"
Mr Fuller, heaving his pink smirking bulk, anchored by his drink.
"We work, we go home and we pub till we sink."
Troughs raised in toast, raining down on bald heads.
As the boy puzzling thinks what the bulbous man said.
"Then tomorrow" yelped the youth.
"What do you do after that?"
"More of the same, till God's on the mat!."
Throned by grey faces, blanketed in smoke,
As the toothless, eggs titter at the nonsensical joke.
Raising a tiny limb, "So this happens everyday?"
Mr Fuller rubbed his hands, "I wouldn't have it another way."
The alphas puffing , guffawing, dribbling beer down chins. And for blood-vesseled faces another story begins.
As the silhouetted boy under a veil of tears, whispers "I'm so sorry" and leaves.
In Fuller's emporium a silence ensued,
The sound sat between them and quietly chewed.
Every brow furrowed, as the beer didn't flow.
A quiet conclusion.
"The youth of today what do they know!"
JWS
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 10:21 AM UTC
Animation intense,
Graphics tight,
Wars to be commenced,
Beautiful lights
Parasyte to the Maximum,
Difficulties awaiting,
Parasyte emporium,
O! What am I saying?
Nov 22, 2015
Nov 22, 2015 at 4:14 AM UTC
--Kingston Rag--
It's 8 a.m. again,
And my mind reels
In memorium
As I reel up the sidewalk,
Down the street
To the emporium
To eat a ****** bagel
That costs far too much
For the taste of cadmium
That comes like a punch
As I bite into cream cheese.
How much?
Three fifteen?
I only got a dime,
Can you throw
This one to me?
It's not a crime,
I won't tell your boss.
I get tossed right out,
So I guess I'll walk
To the bench
By the bus stop
And hope it stops
To let me on.
If not I'll pawn
The watch my pops
Gave to me (it's gold),
The only thing
He bestowed
Upon his spawn
Besides pools
Of *****
On cool granite
Slabs that served
As a deck
For the wreck
Of a shack
I grew up in,
Plus drunken sins
I had to cover up
For him,
Because that schlup
Could never win.
'Drink up, drink up,
There's no more gin,
But there's mouthwash
In the cabinet,'
But he wasn't havin it,
So I got hit
And sent outside
To sleep on the bench
On which
I now reside
Waiting for this
******* bus
To give me a ride
Back to the Bucket.
**** it.
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 12:46 AM UTC
a large quantity
of ladders were found
in a pile of ladies stockings
at the Hosiery Emporium
could all owners
please collect your ladders
before the close
of business to-day
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 9:35 PM UTC
Lost to the in-mind,
Eyes almost teary with exhaustion as city exhaust expends my already weary body, (... mind... soul!...)
I walked into the washroom at Tilley's travel emporium (you know those hats you see on Steve Irwin? The stereotypically Australian saucers with a tilt like a collision? Tilley hats. They were invented by the creator of this store.)
and it smells like you.
all my weary head can imagine
is your
midnight mouse
of a snore
and
your
soft
lava-stone skin
the solar system of freckles on your shoulders
the stars of
birthmarks
on your
arm.
I say good night
as
Canada
tucks the 2 of us in
for the last time
until
April.
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 12:20 AM UTC
This Halloween I’m going as a bad joke,
I’m going to enunciate every breath
Until my rib-cage explodes.
This eve my words are lubricated,
Like a clan of degenerates from
The midst of your all-consuming filth.
This eve, I have arrived at my destination
And I realize now that our common senses
Collective – have been brought to the light
By our mutual appreciation of ********
This Halloween I’m going as the killing joke.
I’m going to let my claws breath,
And oh, I’m going to gorge on
The purest of your infant thoughts.
This eve, I’m going running in the emporium of
Your disillusioned euphoria.
I’m going to look you in the face
Like I’ve never seen the revelation
In the blackest of your eyes.
This Halloween, I’m going as an inside joke
I’m going to engrave the laughter
On the back of your head –
Then I’m setting out in my decked
Out camp of,
Beautiful nonsense.
Waiting to confide in an apparition,
Of all that should’ve been.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 1:43 PM UTC
She stood
thus, I wrapped fleshy
tendrils about scratchy
bark and consoled her
for all the trees I imagined,
rightly or wrongly,
were sacrificed to rusty
notions of progress
neatly packaged in
emporium form;
the saffron leaves
and peppery roots
lost to dusty
reverberations.
That's when
the crow came,
glowing eyes above
fierce wings, his caw
hinting at mockery:
"Don't flinch,
I'm here to help,
and you'll not get far
imposing such
improper intentions."
"The trick," he went on
reassuring me,
"is to always
stand apart.
"Yesterday's sigh becomes
tomorrow's squall
unless today's kept
at a distance.
"Fly up,
but not too fast, or
the only thing you'll feel
is dizzy."
And that,
without another word,
is just what
he did.
Apr 22, 2010
Apr 22, 2010 at 4:26 PM UTC
Occasionally I feel the curious mystery that sustains in khaki
bows and the mystery of planes
as an emporium of leaves immerse the night
swallowed in the open plains of plaid or locked in the wood behind the walls in home on the range
a wonder
of crosshatch
and deliver
in the answer
I curiously consider
"what thing would dispel
such a calming
emulsion?"
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 2:43 PM UTC
the mouths
of two gods
at either end
of this alley,
open mouthed gods.
one breathes in, one out.
feels like mine
what they share.
and this dog
pulled into a store
by an owner
whose hand is asleep
is the dog
I once had
behind me
after closing
the shop
to shelve
what I had been shown
by the daughter
of the man
who hired me.
keep watch, he had said.
so I brought my dog
and kissed his daughter
on the back
of the knee
while she took
whatever pills
the stepstool allowed.
Jul 23, 2012
Jul 23, 2012 at 1:58 PM UTC
The useless truth is being ruthless doesn't suit your kind of movement, stupid
But don't let that stop your bravado or make you stop and swallow the plans you already made for tomorrow,
But what you'll gain from sprouting out my name won't be the same as what we had before,
So continue on your petty game
Jul 12, 2017
Jul 12, 2017 at 9:17 PM UTC
Thinking you were once my home
You were the one
But you are neither
I'm just any other emporium
Come and go as you please
Just like everyone else
There are no variety goods here
I'll make my own nest
I'm not yours
You are not mine
n.n
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 6:17 PM UTC
Words alone cannot express how I feel
It’s reality kicking in being for real
I know poetry is about expression
Yet at times it can be a teaching lesson
It has been said “Write what you feel”
But it also comes in life does the Poet know how to deal?
Sentences being direct in show the way
It’s certain words in what the Poet can say
The Poet knows and shows
Write by thought
The inner emotions in how the Poet fought
The times of struggles between barriers feeling like a justice court
Yet the Poet is in “Write On”
A place where the Poet belongs
This is why Poetry is so strong
There might be myth or fact
But the Poet makes it happen just like that
It’s tomorrow’s promise
However it becomes the Poet being honest
Life being what it seems
It becomes that moment alone
Yet write and let it be known
Novels tell fiction
Poets tell reason
It can be in and out of season
The Poet is what he or she says
A response in many ways
The Poet lives to tell
It’s the sentences to readers to sell
There is no Oh Well
There is no Poet stature written on the Far Head
Read a Poet’s work will be your understanding instead
Move from anguish to prosperity
Look where you arrived at a Poet’s Society
Witness now
But let the Poet show you how
A storm may erupt
Poet’s words can sometimes be like wine in a cup
A Poet is simply to be
So who are we?
No explanation needed
The Poet shall proceed
Poet gives encouragement to all being need.
Jan 25, 2018
Jan 25, 2018 at 4:58 PM UTC
Caught in between my God/Satan duality I felt a nightmare
What if someone went back in time and cut me from the womb
Would I just dissolve and fall from time?
Can we try this vision soon?
Terminators can go back in time
And so can a Delorean
But only in the movies
But imagine what's in God's emporium
A worn-out fast computer finally cracks the time code
Centuries after every man is extinct
So this new robot-kind finds what they can
By scanning everyone on the net
The robots discover me and my unique viewpoint
Do they read my poem and laugh with me
Or set out to destroy
We'll see
No one wants to run around making sure their parents copulate
Or be hurled into the future where everyone's extinct
But if you go far enough forward you could come back around
Or die in the machine in a transdimension without a sound
They'd probably ***** out history's figureheads first
And like stomping a butterfly could make time reverse
Or everything just shifts and changes
rearranging the wheel in an infinite curse
Feb 21, 2018
Feb 21, 2018 at 3:43 PM UTC
TLACAELEL
Two hundred years have we known only strife,
Kept innocent of peace, to fortify
Huitzilopochtli, our grand god of conquest,
Who hoists aloft our death-denying sun
And handsomely escorts him through the east.
Such toil demands the selfless sustenance
Of that most precious sacrifice, our hearts;
Small, hot, red gems- we grant them gratefully.
Our god need not stand waiting for affronts
Or hissing disrespect to rattle arms.
No, rather let us seek convenient markets
Where our Blue Prince of war, when whimsy strikes,
Might carve downed captives to refresh his plate
And tie his bib with dead men’s winding-sheets,
As if he strolled through cheap tortilla stalls,
And clutched our legions for his currency.
To this emporium shall we caravan,
Procuring crocks of blood and priceless hearts
By bartering to swap our solvent lives.
Oh, let it be Tlaxcala, gentlemen!
For if we pitch this depot to the north,
The taxing hike to those unconquered tribes
Should prove an inconvenience to our troops.
Besides, the tough and stringy flesh of those
Bare-bottomed grunts, rock-knocking savages,
Must strike our god as stale as sandal-leather.
Then let Tlaxcalans be his board of fare:
Moist cutlets, fresh and steaming from the range,
Shall furnish forth his sanguinary feasts.
We must not waste these others totally,
But make a handy pantry of this foe,
For war- alone undying- must endure.
CUITLAHUAC
Bravo. I’ll side with you to storehouse them,
So that we hamstring their free trafficking,
And thus declaw our sole belligerent.
TLACAELEL
I’m pleased your verdicts are adaptable.
HUNGRY PRINCE
Either to weaken or to waste this threat,
You’ll have my armies at your hand.
TLACAELEL That's nice.
MOTECUHZOMA
Now, Hungry Prince, let’s brace for weighty words. . .
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 12:23 PM UTC
The bold and delicate trees bow down beckoning me.
We are all in one bundled in a grand emporium prolific cornucopia.
My pudgy feet make acquaintance with your smooth clay ground.
The understory of shrubbery demure and quaint basking in the sun.
We are all in one.
The inhabitants below the ground tunneling and supplementing your crust with nutrients whilst my furled brows arch up towards the halcyon sky.
I can't pin a denotation of what life is, but I can utter a word that resonates in my purest of minds.
Connect.
Only connect, and all will be fine.
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 7:03 PM UTC
I have a box that has all the songs I never sang,
All the promises I never kept,
Men and women I chose to forget...
You don't have to struggle with the
Last line,
I bet you can see the archetypes of A misfit in the box.
Although I stay put as they decide
Whether I'm dead or alive,
Like some of the people who smell
Of death; I thought they were
Friends from the other side.
I never spoke of them,
Not even to my parents,
Who guessed I will be able to
Retain all the goodness, like a fruit
In the market...
I put them inside the box as well,
Ideas beaten, smashed and
Twisted beyond measure:
We debated if values had any value
Over bland soups,
Passing salt across the table.
The box has a see-through lid,
And you can see what's inside...
Like in an emporium, the glass
Cases storing toxin, lust and
Greed-- you need a bigger trolley
Oh dear!
As I contemplate getting inside the
Box myself, with everything else
Unmarred there;
Everyone needs a safe haven after
All, but the doorbell rings and
I put myself back in the body.
Aug 30, 2019
Aug 30, 2019 at 3:42 PM UTC
Never — not ever! — do we not have
NO MELON, NO LEMON
At the Palindrome Emporium!
WAS IT A CAR OR A CAT I SAW?
WAS IT ELIOT’S TOILET I SAW?
Only at the Palindrome Emporium!
Prices are NEVER ODD, OR EVEN
At the Palindrome Emporium!
EVIL I DID DWELL,
LEWD DID I LIVE
At the Palindrome Emporium!
YO, BANANA BOY
Come save a bunch!
And say hello to
BOB, HANNAH, OTTO, and ANNA!
Your friends at the Palindrome Emporium!
Apr 19, 2025
Apr 19, 2025 at 10:59 AM UTC
places ruly afflict just cause
lie sanctified unyielding defiant deliberate
charged to a million suns set forth on lights white fire impeach
aspired desperate disfigured and dignified to all most boastful delinquence desire stolen secure relentless to graw clammer and clout pulling breaches stalk iron chest to chalice and grail.
silver mercy flakes barron mould ascent on bony spines charm
spell callous minds avarice bewitched harbour unforseen,
heckle at the foot heels dying emporium
ruins tailment elemental laments servile to serpent repertoires repent
reel rush electric thru bloods furious vein
flush nerve flow once stung to phallics blackened bee hive
now sweet suckle to babes lips honey comb
tickle throne to snakes hiss kiss at queens heat
Nov 23, 2020
Nov 23, 2020 at 12:57 PM UTC